


on our last night on earth

by kamisado



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Episode: s05e10 Abandon All Hope..., F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamisado/pseuds/kamisado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tomorrow they will face the devil, but for tonight they are content. (A look at that last night at Bobby's before the events at Carthage.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	on our last night on earth

“Are you giving me the last night on earth speech?”  
  
  
Well, of course Dean is, because the number of last nights on earth he’s had, and the number of times that line has worked, is suitably on par. He lives like he’s dying, because most of the time he is; every morning heralds a hundred new ways to die, a hundred new creatures waiting in the shadows to tear him limb from limb. But hearing his line turned back on him like that makes him sound pathetic,  takes him back a decade trying to impress anything female and pretty.  
  
“What? No.”  
  
Dean laughs it off; this doesn’t normally happen, she’s just toying with him. He knows Jo likes him, and-  God, this was a stupid idea in the first place. She’s looking up to him, in more ways than one, a smile plastered all across her face. Mentally, he weighs up how screwed he’s gonna be tomorrow killing Lucifer, with how screwed he’s gonna be if this actually works and then Ellen finds out. He downs some beer; eh, it’s worth the risk.  
  
“If I was…would, uh- would that work?”  
  
She looks amused; he just feels embarrassed. Okay, so this isn’t exactly as smooth as he had hoped. But then again, this isn’t just any girl he’s met in a bar, a random hook-up. This is Jo for Christ’s sake; she pulled a bullet out of his freaking shoulder,  tried to make sure he looked after himself when all he could see were Sam’s problems. Sure, time had passed since then: three years for her; forty-three for Dean. If ever there was ‘right place, right time’, it was here, and it was now.  
  
But Jo teases him, she draws him close enough so that she can nearly smell the warm beer on his breath and tells him about all the self-respect that she has. She knows full well she’s past a little bit drunk, and the same goes for him, but this conversation wouldn’t be happening sober and she doesn’t want to do anything either of them will regret in the morning.  
  
Hunters used to come through the door at The Roadhouse all the time, boasting about how tonight could be their last - and sometimes it was true -  trying to chat Jo up so they could ‘make merry’ as Dean had so bluntly said. But she’d always decline; _it’s not like it’s my last night on earth or anything,_ she’d retort, _and even if it was, I wouldn’t spend it with you_. And no matter how much she likes Dean, she knows now that her feelings are at least somewhat mutual. So why rush it?  
  
“If you’re into that kinda thing,” Dean says as she walks off, finishing his beer, because he knows deep down that it wouldn’t have worked anyway. It was worth a try.  
  
~  
  
They all assemble for Bobby’s picture, everyone tipsy enough that the smiles on their faces aren’t at all forced. Dean wraps one arm around his brother, noticing for the first time that Sam is swaying ever so slightly where he stands, and drapes his other one across Jo’s shoulders. It’s a comfortable fit, so much so that he pretty much disregards Bobby and Ellen’s friendly banter about optimists and remembrance.

“Bobby’s right.” Cas’s voice cuts through the music and the merriment, with a solemn reminder of what their future holds. “Tomorrow, we hunt the devil. This is our last night on Earth.” Dean looks across to him, the smile dropping from his face.

He can feel Sam shuffle uncomfortably next to him; they both know full well that literally anything could happen tomorrow, be it vessel occupation or death or resurrection by angels. Dean pulls Sam’s closer as a show of solidarity, and tightens his grip on Jo’s shoulder instinctively: Cas’s use of ‘our’ just serves as a reminder to Dean that anything that happens tomorrow, happens to them all.  
  
~  
  
The mood’s not quite the same after that, and the resulting photograph is straight-faced and sombre.

Everyone does their best to get Cas’s stark reminder out of their thoughts with copious amounts of alcohol, but the previous joviality has been replaced by an air of apprehension. They toast to their friends: the dwindling number that are still alive and out there residing unhappily somewhere. Then they toast to the dead: to John and Mary Winchester, and Anthony William Harvelle, and Karen Singer, and Ash, and the names just keep coming and coming until Dean, with tears in his eyes that he pretends aren’t there, ends the toast by unceremoniously finishing the bottle he’s been holding and slamming it to the table.  
  
~  
  
Sometime way past midnight, the beer runs out; but that’s okay, because nobody’s in a fit state to drink any more. Sam is passed out in an armchair, one leg sprawled over the arm, a tendril of hair tickling his nose so that he flinches in his sleep every now and again. Ellen is in the other armchair; curled up tightly, almost catlike, and snoring a little; with one of Bobby’s tattered old cushions tucked under her head. Bobby’s right at her side, passed out completely in his chair, snoring like a rusty chainsaw, head ducked to his chest. Castiel sits at the dining table alone; he may be human enough to feel something when he drinks, but he’s not yet human enough to sleep. With one finger he draws out the various methods of attack for tomorrow, again and again on the table top in the sticky smears of beer that had been spilled throughout the course of the night, because someone’s got to have a plan.

The couch is small, and it barely fits one person sleeping, let alone two. Dean is fast asleep, propped up against the side by one arm, taking up most of the couch. Jo is tucked up beside him, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. Somewhere along the line, he got too drunk to notice, and she got too drunk to care, and somehow they ended up here. It wasn’t like anything had happened, at least in the way that Dean had hoped for, but it’s a start. She can hear his pulse beating out a steady tattoo from where her ear is pressed to him; he is warm and strong and she knows that he will keep her safe. Tomorrow they will hunt the devil.  
  
~  
  
Dean knows that every night could be his last; he thinks that somewhere down the line, the angels will give up and just stop bringing him back, but that’s okay, because he’ll have had his last night on this pitiful excuse for a planet.  
Jo knows that she’s too young to die; she thinks that somewhere down the line, she’ll die a hunter, just like her father, but that’s okay, because ‘til then there’s time for all these 'last nights on earth'.  
  
~  
  
Heading home from Carthage, Missouri, Dean will spend tomorrow night looking into an empty beer bottle, but it’s not the same. Sam’ll drive because Dean’s too drunk to stand, instead hazily wondering, wishing even, that next time he uses that stupid line, it might just be the truth.

And he’ll hope that somewhere, wherever she may be, Jo Harvelle is glad that her last night on Earth went as it did.


End file.
